A study of establishing evaluation indices for open government data

Abstract

Governments around the world have enacted Freedom of Information Acts (FOIA) to allow the general public to access government-held information since 1966. The most recent trend is open government data (OGD), which includes data and information produced or commissioned by public bodies and data that can be freely used, re-used and distributed by anyone, subject to the requirement that users attribute the source and share their work as well. OGD promotes greater openness and accountability in government, strengthens democracy and drives innovation and economic opportunities for all people. More than 43 countries and 162 international regional organizations have implemented and operated OGD portals by 2013. The success of OGD policies and projects hinges on robust assessment strategy that not only provides a valuable understanding of the impacts on stakeholders, but also provides an effective feedback mechanism for mid-course corrections. The study examines the antecedents of the impact assessment of OGD in the context of an integrated framework based on the method of analytical hierarchy process. The framework incorporates a wide variety of important factors from previous research provided by the e-Government value chain model, and Information System Success model. To gain insight from e-governance experts in various sectors, we will conduct an online survey of domestic e-governance experts to identify the relative importance of the factors in the framework. The current paper presents the structure of the framework and summarizes the key findings. The lessons from this study will help pave the path for future development of OGD. © 2014 The Authors.